Category: Kauai

Why it is OK to Scare Kids….(and other big babies)

~ K ~ 8 Comments
Would you want to date this guy’s daughter?

Why it is OK to Scare Kids….(and other big babies)

My wife tends to disagree with me on some of my parenting theories.  She thinks that I shouldn’t be the big, bad, scary and intimidating father to my daughter’s (who is age 11) friends.  I, of course, disagree.  I’m not mean, big, bad or scary to my daughter’s female friends…just to her little male friends.

I want those kids to fear me.  I want them to know that if they mess with my little girl that they will have to deal with me.  Is that really wrong?  To be honest, I’m not threating them or verbally scaring them….I just look scary.  That is the key…look scary.  Nothing wrong with looking scary, right?

Sure, I’m a very articulate individual who enjoys a good conversation but sometimes the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut.  He who talks first, loses right?  I want to be that father that is sitting in his chair when the daughter comes in with her friends and the boy just looks at me and knows he should be fearful.  He should think “Hmm, I probably don’t want to upset her dad…he just looks scary.”

It isn’t like my daughter is dating so I shouldn’t worry….yet.  However, why not plan for the future and lay the foundation now.  The farmer doesn’t wait until the summer to plant his crops; he plants his seeds in the winter.  I’m planning for the future.  I’m planting the seeds of fear and respect in the minds of these 11 year old boys now so they know not to mess with me (or my daughter later).  Hopefully, when they get into middle school and high school my reputation as a scary, frightening father grows into an almost unbelievable legend that will be passed down from generation to generation.

Of course, my professional as a school photographer isn’t exactly a job that scares kids.  I also don’t have any tattoos, nor do I talk “ghetto” or “white trash”.  The best I can do is speak Hawaiian Pidgin English from my school days on Kauai.  Furthermore, it’s not like I’m from SEAL Team Six or on the SWAT team. The only scary thing about me is my bald head and the fact I practice aikido (a non-violent martial art).  I suppose someone unfamiliar with it could possibly think I am a weapon of death and destruction.

Any thoughts on making myself a little bit more intimidating to the youth of today?  Any worthless advice, tips, suggestions, ideas?  Come on….leave a comment or two!  And thanks for reading my Blog of Worthless Advice!

First Day of School! Happiness returns to my Home!

~ K ~ 8 Comments

Back to School!Today was the first day of school for the Kent School District here in the rainy Puget Sound area.  To be honest, I cannot remember any first day of school being so rainy.  Sure, maybe we did have a rainy day on Kauai when I was a kid but usually in the Seattle area we luck out with no rain on the first day of school.  Most years, we enjoy a nice September of great sunny weather (and wish our kids were out of school in September instead of rainy June).  Last year, we had awesome sunny weather until October 1st.

That doesn’t mean that our Labor Day Weekend is always good.  We’ve had Labor Day Weekends full of solid, miserable rain where we were stuck in the lake house the whole three day weekend.  On the bright side, this upcoming Labor Day Weekend is looking fairly good according to the TV weather folks.

Yet happiness has returned to our household with the first day of school.  Over the summer, the kids did argue and have a few fights.  I know that is shocking considering what an awesome father I am and how well behaved my children are.  I also may have forgotten to feed my daughter lunch a few times during the summer.  But in my defense, she is 10 and knows how to make a sandwich.  Besides, I was doing yard projects and my hands were dirty….well, not really I wear gloves…gotta keep my hands soft.

The kids returning back to school is always a mixed bag for me.  I like having my kids around but I need them to go back before I go nuts.  The internet and Xbox can only entertain your kids so much during the summer before you actually have to do something with them.  You know, take them to a beach, do a vacation together, etc.

However, our summer is now over.  It just blew by in a hasty mess of activities, summer camps, vacations, and trips and still left me with the feeling that I didn’t do enough with my kids.

So for the next 9 months of school, I’ll plan a really fun summer of 2014.  We’ll do a bunch of hiking, road trips, vacations, river rafting, and stay weeks on end at fancy resorts paid by my hugely successful Blog of Worthless Advice!  So hit that “Like” button now.  Make some insane comments and have your cute photo below this post!

Dad Decides To Cancel All Future Vacations Due to Lack of Interest By Children

~ K ~ 4 Comments
Wait…what just happened?

In a swift and bold mood, Jack Fernwood announced to his family this morning that all future vacations will be cancelled.  Citing his children’s lack of interest in doing anything other than playing on their smartphones, iPads, iPods, computers, and watching TV, Jack made the announcement over breakfast while drinking a non-fat mocha while on vacation in Hawaii.

As Jack drank his fancy coffee drink and made this shocking announcement, no one in his family bothered to comment because they were all too busy playing on their various electronic devices.  When he made the announcement for the fifth time, his 14 year old daughter Sarah was quick to post on her Facebook a scalding post about how unfair her father was.  She followed this post with a self portrait of herself with the sand beaches of Hawaii behind her.

Jack’s 12 year old son Brad was quoted as saying “Whatever” and continued to play his computer game.

Cindy, Jack’s wife (age undisclosed) gave her husband the “I’m going to kill you” look while she texted messages back and forth with her best friend Jackie.

Jack did say that he was tired of spending thousands of dollars on family vacations while everyone was just going to sit around and play on their “stupid phones”.  He cited their recent whale watching trip where his children were texting their friends back home and totally missed the family of humpback whales that went under their boat.

Jack’s friends back home, upon hearing the news, were not surprised.

His friend Raymond offer this insight into his friend Jack’s reasoning.

“Jack can fly off the handle once in while but we’ll come back to his senses.  I mean, really, do you think he has the guts to follow through with this?  His wife Cindy is going to kill him if he tried to implement this policy.  I’m sure we can attribute this outburst to Jack being overtired and grasping at the idea of his family actually enjoying a vacation together.  We all know in this wired world that he is a dinosaur when it comes to old family vacation ideas.”

Jack’s wife Cindy, shrugged her shoulders when asked to comment about this new “No Vacation Policy”.

Sources close to Cindy did give us a little insight into her thinking by mentioning the terms “over my dead body” and “he’ll rethink this little misstep if he knows what is good for him”.

Hawaii Life TV Show: Honolulu

~ K ~ 2 Comments

A few of you might remember that my parents still live on Kauai and I went to high school on Kauai.  I like Kauai and am enjoying the TV show “Hawaii Life”.  The show is most likely produced by the real estate company “Hawaii Life” because they make Hawaii look awesome.  On the flip side, “Dog the Bounty Hunter” shows the meth heads, wife beaters, and bond jumping thugs of Honolulu in such a positive light.

The most recent episode of “Hawaii Life” was about a couple that lived on Oahu looking for a condo in downtown Honolulu.  The couple was recently married and living with her parents but looking to move out.  Ideally, they wanted to live in downtown Honolulu since it was close to his job.

I have a few friends that live on the island of Oahu so this particular episode was interesting to me.  As a father, I would prefer to live in a house with my family rather than a condo with no yard.  As a married couple (with no kids), I could go with a condo living and a nice view to enjoy.  No lawn to mow?  No bushes to trim?  No leaves to rake?  Where do I sign up?

As long as I have access to some good grocery stores and can go for a walk, I’m happy.  Throw in some good golf courses, some sandy beaches, and a library, I’m good to go.

When you live in Western Washington, you see about 220 days of cloudy gray skies a year.  On the eastern side of the great state of Washington, that ratio of cloudy weather to sunny days flip flops to 200+ days of sun.  Sure, winters are colder with actually freezing temperatures and the chance of snow and ice, but there is sun and blue skies.

Am I complaining about wet Seattle again?  Yes, I am.  I live here and I can complain…it’s a great combination.

Back to the show “Hawaii Life”….the couple picked a nice condo, the real estate agent made a good commission, and everyone is happy.  Except me, sitting here in wet Seattle, with the temperatures in the 40’s and raining.  Life is perfect and you should move here to Seattle.  We could hang out and be friends in person (versus you reading my blog and wishing you could talk with me in person).

The parents must have been really delighted to finally get their daughter and their son-in-law out of their house.  I’m sure they wanted to take care of their daughter and husband forever….

Hawaii Life TV Show

~ K ~ 4 Comments

Yesterday, I managed to watch another episode of the TV show “Hawaii Life”.  This one involved a former pro surfer who was moving back to Oahu (Hawaii).  Oahu is called the “Gathering Place” island and roughly 85% of the state’s population lives on Oahu.  That is about 850,000 people.  As you can figure out, the State of Hawaii has about 1 million people.  This doesn’t include the tourist population that is coming and going throughout the year.

Now, you might now that my parents still live on the island of Kauai (know as the Garden Isle) and that I lived there for a while in my youth.  I attended Kapa’a High School on Kauai.

When you tell people you went to school in Hawaii, everyone thinks it must have been totally awesome.  Warm weather, the beach, the kick back lifestyle.

As a teenager, it wasn’t as fun as you can imagine.  I’m a haole boy (a Caucasian) so I got picked on.  Part of the problem I was a big kid, not fat mind you, just physically big.  I swam, mountain biked, and lifted weights (me Incredible Hulk, me strong…not really).  I was a pretty good target for local boys that didn’t like haoles.

Not all of my experience on Kauai was bad.  I did have some great friends and did a lot of fun activities.  I was just careful on where I went and who I was hanging out with.  If I had my big Hawaiian friends, I was able to go to some rougher areas.  If I was with my haole friends, we went to the more public beaches.

When I watch the “Hawaii Life” show, I enjoy it.  The show “Hawaii Life” is well done.  It is fun to see sunshine, surf, and the beaches here in the comfort of my Seattle home.  Hawaii is a wonderful place and after watching this type of show I get a bit homesick.  The weather looks wonderful, the beaches look inviting, and the family (buying the house) appears to be very happy.

SAM_1334kevin

To combat my feelings of moving back, I quickly watch a few episodes of “Dog the Bounty Hunter”.  Nothing like Dog chasing down some meth head or bail jumper to snap me back into reality and wake me up!  The reality being that Hawaii is like everywhere else.  Sure, you have great weather but you also have drugs and crime, good times and bad times.  Life is what you make of it.

In the meantime, I plan to whine about not living in Hawaii and not buying a house like the folks on “Hawaii Life”.  Boo hoo.  Poor me!  What am I going to do.  Perhaps I should start a donation site in which people (like yourself) could contribute to my family’s move back to Kauai.  What do you think about that?

Gravatar Portraits: How Sexy is too Sexy?

~ K ~ 11 Comments

I think I need a sexier Gravatar portrait on my blog.  The one I have is way too boring for all the witty comments I make.

Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with your Gravatar photo, it is usually the photo that appears when you make a comment on a blog.  It’s not like I’m a blogger expert, so this advice might fall into the “I’m right 97.9% of the time” category.

Visualize this: Me in a minivan with my bald head shining brightly, wearing some really cool looking shades, and the summertime Aloha Shirt.

Sounds pretty awesome, huh?

That would be the typical middle aged father you never wanted to become but because time marches on, you have become.  Unless you are a woman.  Then that picture became a whole lot stranger.

A couple of problems I have with my upcoming portrait that need to be addressed.

Minivan:

We don’t have a minivan. Sure, I could borrow one.  I’m hoping someone I know has a real weird color.  Maybe a pink or bright red one…with a racing stripe on it.  Now, that would be cool.  And flames on the side with custom rims and low profile tires.

Bald Head:

This I don’t have a problem.  I really haven’t had hair on the top of my head since 1996.  However the shiny part will be hard.  I live in Seattle and we don’t get the sun shining out much expect for ten days in August.

Cool Looking Shades:

Again, in Seattle we don’t have a lot of sun so finding sunglasses might be hard.  However, I do have some really neat looking safety glasses that might work.  Of course, I don’t want to look like MMA fighter either.

Aloha Shirt:

I’m from Hawaii so this isn’t a problem.  My real problem is which one to wear; that will be the hard part to decide upon.  Do I go with the casual business style Aloha shirt or the obnoxious tourist style shirt from Hilo Hatties?  The casual business style is more professional and won’t make me look like a dork on vacation.  But clearly the obnoxious Aloha shirt will scream out to others that I am a fun loving blogger.  Yet will the obnoxious Aloha shirt makes my witty comments less effective because I look like a clown?  Then there is the whole issue of how many buttons do you undo on the shirt.  Do you go with all but the top button buttoned up?  Do you go with a few buttons unbutton?  Or do you really “man it up” and leave all the buttons undone, letting your massive muscular chiseled chest with rock hard abs glisten in the sun?  This Aloha shirt issue is pretty complicated.

So you see my new Gravatar photo is something I really need to think about.  The planning process itself might take weeks, perhaps even months.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you will this new Photoshopped photo of me.

7453 Kevin Yellow

As always, your witty and sarcastic comments are welcome.  I still am waiting to hear from you.

Really, you have time to leave a comment….just go to the bottom of this post and add something…make me feel like I have a reader besides my Mom and my imaginary stalker Cyndi!

“Hawaii Life” TV show: Oh, Let’s all move to Kauai!!!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

One new show I recently stumbled across on Comcast On Demand in the HGTV section was “Hawaii Life”.  The two episodes I watched both featured the island of Kauai and families moving from the mainland to Kauai.  One family was moving from Alaska to Kauai and the other show highlighted a married couple moving from Indianapolis to Kauai.  From the flow of the show, I’m guessing the show is either taped right after each family’s real estate transaction was closed or maybe it was actually filmed during some of the process.  To me, I felt that the show was taped after the real estate transaction was closed.  I’m not even sure the properties they looked at (during the show) were really the ones they considered.

It was nice to see the island of Kauai and the homes they considered.  As a promotional piece, this show is awesome.  It makes moving and living on Kauai super easy.  “Hawaii Life” skips the education issue by mentioning that the family from Alaska would home school their children.  We also don’t hear about the traffic problems on Kauai.  Don’t get me wrong, Kauai is a wonderful place but the paradise aspect of the show is overdone.

I know that these reality shows don’t want to show you the bad things but it would be nice to know the truth about traffic, education, weather, etc.  In a 21 minute show, I know you can’t do that.  People have to do their own research if they plan to move, not just watch a couple of real estate programs about Kauai, jump on a plane and move.

To be honest, these people had made previous vacation trips to Kauai and had jobs lined up before they moved.  Would I move back to Kauai with my family?  I’m tempted but in reality, I won’t be moving them back any time soon.  I miss the wonderful weather (especially during the Seattle wet winters) but I like my life in Seattle.  I enjoy the different seasons: the snowshoe hikes in the Cascades, swimming on the lake on Anderson Island in the summer, traveling cheaply to other parts of the United States with reasonable airfares, the Oregon Coast, the train trips.

With that reality show on your mind: Kauai hibiscus flowerWhat would you consider the most inspiring television show in history?  Don’t worry; I don’t have a clue either.  With this age of reality shows, most of us would prefer that the most inspiring show was the one that alludes to the end of all other reality shows.  I’m tired of being sucked into these train wrecks reality shows.  I have no self control and like watching them and I know is a totally waste of time.  What does the show “Housewives of Beverly Hills” offer me?  How is “Honey Boo Boo” going to teach me to be a better parent?

However, I do like “Pawn Star” and “American Restoration”.  Now that is interesting….a little history lesson at a pawn store.  Who would have known?

It’s Official: Fall is here in Seattle – Worthless Advice: Time to dress a little warmer!

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Heck, if you haven’t noticed Fall is here in Seattle.  In my humble house, I finally turned on the furnace and restarted the gas fireplace this week marking the end of summer.  In Seattle, summer dragged on until October 9.  Now, I’m not complaining about that.  It has been a really nice treat for everyone.  I haven’t worn a coat for a long time.  There has been no noticeable rainfall for a good month and a half (maybe longer) and daytime temperatures were hitting 70 degrees.

However, the last few days, the weather has turned colder and I’ve accepted fall like the comfortable friend she is.  We flipped on the gas fireplace and experienced the smell of the dust being burned off.  Every year, my goal is to wait until at least October 1 to turn on the heat and the fireplace.  We made it to October 9 so I’m happy.

Since it is October, we are also in Halloween mode.  The decorations are coming out in our neighborhood, the leaves on the trees are turning, and the rain is back.  We won’t see the sun until the end of June.  Welcome Fall weather!  Enjoy the rain 24/7, the temperatures in the 40-55 degree range.

In a week, I’ll be sick of this rainy weather and will be blogging about how much I hate it and wished I was living back on Kauai.

Hawaii Waterfall
Wailua Waterfall 2011

A “Why People Are Stupid” Segment: A pet peeve

~ K ~ 1 Comment

As you may or may not know, I recently escape from my extremely exciting life here in Seattle and travelled back to Kauai for some rest and relaxation.  I am quite fortunate to be able to stay with my parents in their guest cottage on Kauai.  While not quite the guest house of the TV show Magnum P.I., it suits me well for my vacation needs. http://www.makanacrest.com

As with many people, visiting the old stomping grounds of one’s youth brings memories flooding back.  One in particular that annoys me is the recent mainland transplant person that insists on using as many Hawaiian words as they can in their everyday speech.  I’m not talking about tourists, I’m talking about the people that retire to Kauai (or any other Hawaiian Island) and try to make you think that they lived there their whole life.

This person could be male or female but they are transplants to the Hawaiian Islands.  It is so annoying to see them pretend that they have lived here their whole lives.  They sprinkle a few Hawaiian words into their speaking style with such abandonment you swear you were in a 1960’s CIA educational video on “how to blend in” tot the local area.

A lot of the Hawaiian words they use are perfectly fine.  However, when they sprinkle them into their regular mainland speech style, it drives me nuts.  They clearly don’t know or understand that a whole other dialect of English exists in the Hawaiian Islands.  This is called “pidgin” or “pidgin English”.  It is a slang that separates the tourist from the locals.

What exactly is a local?  I would argue that is someone that is born in the State of Hawaii that has a darker skin tone and a Hawaiian last name.  That is a very limited definition because Hawaii is a huge melting pot of different cultures and people.  You might have a common German last name but your family is almost all local.  And you might have a Hawaiian last name and only be one percent Hawaiian blood.  Once you live in Hawaii, you just know who is who from the way they act and talk.

Now, my pet peeve isn’t that I hate anyone that comes to Hawaii to live, my pet peeve is their insane belief that by speaking a few Hawaiian words, everyone will think they are locals and have lived there their whole life.

An example: You are at a fairly public place talking with a friend or spouse about a place on Kauai, our Transplant overhears you and wants to be your “Aloha” friend.

The Transplant of Stupidity (TTS): Aloha!  I noticed you were talking about that restaurant, it’s really good.

Me: Oh really.  I never did really like it.

TTS: I just took my ohana there and we loved the pupus!  I’m a ka’amina and I love to travel from the mauka side of the island here.  In fact, last time we were here, we saw some honi swimming in the waves.

Me: Really? Where are you from?

TTS: My hale is in Kapaa.

Me: No, where are you originally from?

TTS: I’m from here.

Me: I think you are not fully understanding my simple question…where did you move from before you lived on Kauai?

TTS: Well, I lived in California (or Washington or Oregon or Utah…it doesn’t matter TTS come from everywhere) before I moved here.

A local person would use pidgin English for that whole conversation and you wouldn’t understand what half of it meant….but the local would.

I know that I will never be considered a “local” on Kauai.  Once you are a haole (a foreigner, Caucasian) you are always a haole.  You do have friends that are born and raised there and are Caucasian, but are always describe as haole.  Their local friends will call them local haoles to separate them from the transplants.  I’m not a local haole and I don’t try to pass myself off as one.  I do run into people I went to school with on Kauai and I still have friends on Kauai but I don’t speak “pidgin” to the same degree they do.  They might say I’m a local haole but I’m not comfortable saying that myself.  I accept that I’m a haole and I’ll just stick to my mainland English.  I can still wear my local style clothes and eat my local food (because the food is really awesome) but I won’t try to say I’m local (considering I haven’t lived on Kauai since college).

In reality, I’m a tourist in my old stomping grounds and this leads me to enjoy Kauai for the great place it is.  I know good bodyboarding beaches and I know good snorkeling spots.  I can visit a secluded beach or swim in a mountain stream only the locals know about.  I accept that.  I just won’t sprinkle Hawaiian words into my speech in a sad attempt to pretend that I lived there my whole life.

A hui hou kakou (until we meet again)…which no one says unless they speak fluent Hawaiian.

 

 

 

Good Morning! It’s cat puke for Valentine’s Day!

~ K ~ Leave a comment

This morning, I discovered cat puke outside my office door. Oh yeah! A few years back, I built my office behind my main house and to access it, I must leave my main house and walk a short distance to my office. Normally, I don’t mind this commute. However, when you have cat puke in front of your office door, it makes the commute less attractive.

I figured I’d just squirt off the cat’s gift with a little garden hose action. I walked over to the garden hose, put the nozzle on, and took the coil of hose off the hanger. Of course, it is raining and I’m getting wetter than I had planned. I’m also wearing my slippers. I turn the water on, start dragging the hose, it gets caught on something and I almost fall flat on my back. Cursing, I go back to wear the spot where the hose is caught and proceed to sink into our wet lawn. My slippers are now getting muddy and wet on the inside. Arrghhh.

In an elegant manner fit for a ballerina, I manage to free the hose, clean off the cat’s gift from my office porch (spraying myself with the hose as well) and miss the dog piles in the yard. Oh right! Mission accomplished! I wind the hose back up, again it gets caught on something while I do this and finish this unpleasant task with a flurry.

Now, my favorite slippers are wet, I’m wet, and I still haven’t made it into my office. The kicker of this whole thing is that we don’t even own a cat! It had to be one of the 12 cats that live within the four houses in our cul-de-sac. We have so many cats I feel like we are a pet store. This is really when I was living back on Kauai or least there on vacation at my parent’s guest house www.makanacrest.com.

I almost forgot it was Valentine’s Day! Speaking of which, I wonder if my parents have any weddings today. They live on Kauai (in the State of Hawaii) and operate www.kauaiweddings.com.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.